


Continually Unexpected

by mosylu



Series: Let Me Count the Ways [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Jyn is violent, Kay fails to understand her, and there's a recruit getting his ass kicked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 22:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12898398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: K-2SO is used to new rebels reacting to the sight of him with shock and alarm and often violence.He's not used to anyone defending him.





	Continually Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> This is a self-prompt from the 100 Ways to Say I Love You list, for “You’re important, too.”

K-2SO could fault organics for any amount of muddled thinking, but one thing he couldn’t really blame them for was their propensity toward alarm at their first sight of him. After all, he was over two meters tall and stark black, with legs that could chase down a tauntaun in full gallop and arms that could rip someone’s head off their neck. Then there was the Imperial insignia that Cassian declined to remove. He supposed that didn’t help.

He’d been screamed at, shot at, run away from, tackled, punched, and on one memorable occasion, nearly bombed. And that was just on rebel bases.

It really was a good thing he didn’t have feelings to hurt.

Thus, it was business as usual when a new recruit walking through the halls (you could always tell them; they were the ones looking around goggle-eyed, usually lost) caught sight of Kay, dropped his bag, fumbled for his blaster, and yelled, _“Everybody down!”_

Kay sighed. It was so annoying getting blaster burns painted over.

“Hey!” Jyn burst out of the crowd and rammed into the newbie’s side hard enough to send him staggering. She did something swift and vicious to his wrist that loosed a howl and made his fingers spring open. The weapon clattered to the ground, and then he dropped on top of it as she kicked the backs of his knees in, folding down to the plascrete under his own weight and the addition of Jyn’s. 

Sitting on his back, she growled, “You do that again and the damage is permanent, savvy?”

“It’s a kriffing Imperial security droid!”

“It’s _our_ kriffing security droid and you - ” She smacked the back of his head hard enough to bash his face into the floor. “ - could have caused a riot over nothing.”

“We could have been invaded,” he mumbled into the plascrete, blood dripping from his nose. Not quick, this one.

“Or maybe the crowd of people milling around longshanks there in complete unconcern might have tipped you off? Rebel, you’re going to have to learn to take in some fucking _context_ , or you’ll last about twelve minutes in the field.”

The stated crowd of people was currently watching with a mix of consternation, interest, and enjoyment. This was not the first time Kay had noted that there was a certain segment of the population who derived entertainment from watching Jyn Erso beat somebody up.

“You see that wrist-chop? Thing of beauty, I tell you. She’s an artist.”

“Mmm, see, but there’s no _grace_ to it.”

“You see how fast he went down? She don’t need grace, she’s fucking _efficient_ is what she is.”

Kay reflected again that organics were really very strange.

The newbie turned his head to peer at Kay. “He’s really ours?”

“Yes, fool. D'you think they’d all be standing around watching me give you a drubbing if we were being invaded?” She climbed off the luckless newbie’s back and gave his hip a nudge just shy of a kick. “Get to sickbay. You’re bleeding all over the floor.”

He clambered to his feet, staring at Kay, who attempted to look non-threatening, because Jyn hadn’t taken the newbie’s blaster away.

“He’s really - ?”

Jyn rolled her eyes. “Go away.”

“But, um, which way’s sickbay?”

She pointed, and he drifted off, looking dazed. Some kind soul took him in hand, probably to explain Kay, and for that matter, Jyn.

With the show concluded, the crowd broke up and went about their own business again, leaving Jyn and Kay in the middle of the corridor.

She propped her hands on her hips and looked him up and down. “Didn’t get off a shot, did he?”

“No,” Kay said.

She sniffed scornfully. “Idiot.”

“There was no need,” Kay informed her. “I could have subdued him.”

“You’re welcome.”

This didn't follow standard conversational patterns. Kay filed the anomaly under  _Jyn_ and added, “Cassian was not here.”

"I know," she said, annoyance in her voice.

“He was in no danger of being hurt by that fool with the blaster," Kay clarified.

“Yeah, we’ve established that.”

He proceeded to the next possibility. “Were you concerned for the safety of the surrounding organics?”

“No.” She shrugged. “I suppose they could have been in danger, now that you mention it.”

“Why?”

She looked up at him. “You’re important too.”

He processed that, feeling his circuits crackle at the words. “Your behavior is - ”

“Continually unexpected, yeah, I know,” she grumbled, striding away from him. “Can we stop talking about it now?”

FINIS


End file.
